


Well I'll Be Damned, Here Comes Your Ghost Again

by Memories_of_the_Shadows



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dysfunctional Family, Families of Choice, Family Issues, Grief/Mourning, Homesickness, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Serial Murder, M/M, Recipes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Memories_of_the_Shadows/pseuds/Memories_of_the_Shadows
Summary: Abigail misses the taste of home, and has to deal with her conflicting feelings about her father, Hannibal, and Will.
Relationships: Abigail Hobbs & Garrett Jacob Hobbs, Abigail Hobbs & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham & Abigail Hobbs, Will Graham & Abigail Hobbs & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	Well I'll Be Damned, Here Comes Your Ghost Again

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez but to be quite honest the first time I ever heard this song was Blackmore's Night and that's still my favorite version.
> 
> I do not consent to my work being hosted on any unofficial apps, especially any with ad revenue and subscription services, or any website other than ao3 unless I personally cross-posted a work.

There’s things she misses about her father, things that had once been such an integral part of her home life that Abigail had mistaken them for simply the way the world _works_.

She knows better now, but she _aches_ with missing the comfort and certainty of home.

(And her father _was_ home, far more than her mother, even though both Abigail and her father loved her dearly, and Abigail loves her memory still. But everything that _made_ a home, from the cooking to the passing down of skills, seemed to come from her father. Her mother had always said that Abigail was her Daddy’s girl, in a wistful sort of voice, especially when Abigail would get bored sewing or lost on math homework no matter how many times her mother tried to help. She loves her mother, but--it makes a guilty churn start up in her gut--she ended up loving her father more.

Sometimes she wonders if her mother knew, like the way Abigail pretended not to, what Abigail’s father was using the pillows she made for them both to hide. If she would have still been so proud and grateful that _her_ husband cooked and enjoyed doing it for their family if she knew what he had been cooking. Abigail’s already lost her illusions of her father, though. She finds she doesn’t want to know if her mother is the same kind of bitter disappointment.)

That longing shows itself in odd ways, like the urge to wander through thick forests that she can only partly assuage with a walk through the curated, thin woods around the hospital; or the straining for a familiar accent that never comes.

The worst, though, is the food. Nothing tastes the same, nothing even comes close, and they don’t even use the same recipes that she grew up on. Abigail knows _why_ , of course, so she doesn’t dare breathe a word of distaste even while the food sits like ash on her tongue.

Dr. Bloom mistakes Abigail’s loss of appetite as depression. Guilt. Maybe she’s right, but Abigail just wants the food to taste like _home_ , and it never does.

Well, almost never.

Dr. Lecter does not serve any kind of recipe that Abigail can recognize--except for a blood sausage that he makes for her with eggs one morning, the one after she breaks his teacup. Abigail couldn’t savor it at the time, too terrified that she would never be allowed back to the closest place to home she’s found so far. Abigail may not recognize the recipes or the words that Hannibal uses to describe those dishes, but there’s an inherent _flavor_ to them that she _does_.

Abigail won’t tell, tries not to even let on to Dr. Lecter that she recognizes anything. The way he looks at her sometimes, like she’s some precious curiousity that deserves to be on a shelf--stuffed and studied--tells her she may not be entirely successful. At least she seems to be more interesting alive than shelved at the moment.

(With her father, she had never doubted he loved her. Madly and possessively at the end, but it was true. The only time she ever had to be afraid of him killing her was when she tried to leave, when circumstances conspired to _make_ her leave. And even then, it took an imminent and unavoidable _threat_ to get her father to that point.

With Dr. Lecter, he is both more and less volatile than her father. Abigail sometimes thinks that she could leave Baltimore, leave the _country_ , and Dr. Lecter would do _nothing_. But, let slip something she shouldn’t, do something that casts doubt or even gets in the way of his inscrutable plan and Abigail has very little doubt that she is disposable. It shouldn’t be as freeing as it is.)

Will’s cooking--the one time he brings her something in her tiny hospital room that feels more like a prison cell every day--has more homey care and _love_ in it than Dr. Lecter’s perfectly crafted dishes, but it’s not the right ingredients, not the right kind of home-cooking. The fish he brings--rubbed dark with spices and made from no recipe except memory and taste--is still the most she’s eaten at one time that does not come from Dr. Lecter’s kitchen.

Dr. Bloom frowns at it, at such a clear preference for the murderer of her father, and mutters about misplaced attachments and growing up.

Abigail thinks that she’s done enough growing up for a bit, and deserves some attachments that aren’t likely to die in her place for a while. She doesn’t tell Dr. Bloom that.

She doesn’t tell Dr. Bloom anything anymore.

Hunger gnaws at her like a beaten dog at a bone as she hops the fence and visits Dr. Lecter. She’s always assured of _something_ to eat when she visits him.

Sure enough, Dr. Lecter merely raises an eyebrow and lets her in, seating her at the table and serving something she can’t pronounce but sounds French. “Alana tells me you haven’t been eating at the hospital,” he says, cutting into his meat. Abigail bites back the instinctive jump towards privacy; she should know by now that she has none.

“Nothing there tastes right,” she says instead, following his precise manners so she doesn’t accidentally offend him. It earns her a small, pleased--she hopes--smile and a raised eyebrow.

“You seem to have quite the appetite here, Abigail. Will was also very pleased that you enjoyed his fish as much as you did. I’m afraid I do not see the problem dear Alana does?” It’s an invitation to explain, a chance for her to lie to him like she does everyone else. Abigail doesn’t want to lie to Dr. Lecter, but she also doesn’t want to become the kind of liability that must be dealt with. She hesitates, eating the creamy potatoes to buy time and also because it’s the best potatoes she’s ever had.

She shrugs. “You said you weren’t born in America, Dr. Lecter. Don’t you miss the food you ate with your parents?” She does. Abigail misses home with a poignancy that she never expected. “Everything’s different here.”

Dr. Lecter hums, patting his mouth with a napkin before going to bring her seconds. Abigail wants to cry. “There are occasions, yes, when I miss the food from my youth. But that was many years ago.”

Abigail wants to say that it’s barely been a few months for her, but she ducks her head instead. “It’s hard… adjusting. But I love your food. And Will’s. It’s just… not the same.”

She’s used to eating every part. And, fondness for offal and sweet meats aside, even Dr. Lecter doesn’t use every part. Scraps and such don’t seem to have a place at his table.

Will would like her favorite food, she thinks, hopes really, thinking longingly of scrapple sandwiches slathered in mustard and tucked beside a note from her father in her lunch bag. People had made fun of her for it, a cheap meat mush that wasn’t even Minnesotan, but it was one of the few things her and her mother agreed on.

“My mother was an accountant,” Abigail starts, not really knowing why. Most people now don’t seem to remember that Abigail lost her mother the same time she lost her father. Dr. Lecter even pronounced her, but he’s more interested in the shadow of her father than the sliver of light her mother was. Abigail supposes like calls to like. “She met my father in Philadelphia, when he was working on a job. They _loved_ each other, and, and, he would always bring her her favorite foods, he learned how to make it just for her. They only moved to Minnesota because of me. Because mom wanted me to grow up outside of the city.”

It had been her favorite story, one her mother used to tell her at night to get her to sleep. Her father would tell her his side of it--seeing her mother and just wanting to take _care_ of her, learn more about her--while he cooked for them, until she had memorized it. Dr. Lecter listens politely, the only interruption a gentle clink of his knife against the plate. “Nobody talks to me about her. I miss her, and I miss my father, and nothing tastes like _home_ , and I don’t even have a home to go back to.”

Learning _that_ had been hard enough without everything else. It would be so much _easier_ if she wasn’t imprisoned in the hospital. There’s nothing permanent in that place, and Dr. Bloom wonders why she clings to Dr. Lecter and Will? They’re the only ones who want her out of there, her only roots outside. Marissa is dead, her family all dead, strangers on the street want her to disappear.

Dr. Lecter takes her plate--Abigail doesn’t even remember finishing it, but her stomach is full--and she follows him to the kitchen. He hands her a dish towel and Abigail falls into a meditation of drying whatever he hands her. It earns her yet another faint smile, and the only thing that would be better is if Will were there with them. Well, the only possible thing. Her mother and father are never coming back.

She knows she has to get back to the hospital, knows that Dr. Bloom will only be more disappointed in her if she finds Abigail at Dr. Lecter’s again. But she lingers near the door, not really wanting to leave, but also not wanting to overstay her welcome.

Dr. Lecter brushes her shoulder, and for a moment it feels like she is a little less of a disposable oddity and more a precious thing like Will is to him. “My dear, I do not think I have ever asked, but what is your favorite food?” He asks it like she’d ask the weather, and Abigail isn’t going to hope for _that_.

“Oh, um.” Saying it out loud brings back the memories of children turning up their nose at her lunch, of cruel words from kids and pitying glances from adults who assume she eats it because she’s _poor_. “Scrapple sandwiches…”

He raises an eyebrow, and Abigail can practically _see_ him connect the dots between her father’s version of love for the girls he murdered and it. She’s practically announcing it from the rooftops with that, and if Dr. Lecter _isn’t_ the man on the phone--but he is, she knows he is, he admitted it to her, even if she won’t ever go to the police with it, probably won’t ever even go to Will with it, their secret to the end of time, and she’ll never say it out loud again--Abigail might have just earned herself a life long stay in the hospital Dr. Bloom insisted on.

Instead, Dr. Lecter brushes her shoulder again before opening the door for her. His nose wrinkles briefly, but it’s gone before she can even feel hurt by it. “Ah, I may have to do some shopping, dear Abigail. Do tell Alana not to worry Will with this. We shall sort out this bout of homesickness ourselves.” He looks dangerous, for a moment, the way her father could sometimes look when they were… hunting.

It’s thrilling and terrifying all at once, but strangely… freeing. Dr. Lecter doesn’t expect her to do anything, she won’t be involved beyond the enjoyment of whatever he ends up making. Someone may still be dying because she is selfish, but she doesn’t have to choose, or even acknowledge it.

She almost wants to cry, almost wants to swing her arms around him, almost wants to disappear into the night.

Abigail goes back to the hospital instead, and waits for Dr. Lecter to invite her back.

* * *

Will is the one who picks her up, right as she is on the edge of too-antsy waiting for an invitation back to Dr. Lecter’s. It’s been at least a week and a half, and she almost believes that the implicit promise was just a spur of the moment gesture to make her feel better, nothing truly meant.

At least with Will, Abigail gets to feel an echo of her father’s love for her. She doesn’t understand how his mind works--she doesn’t think anybody really understands how his mind works, maybe not even Will himself--but she knows that somewhere behind those kind, blue eyes there’s a bit of her father and that makes sense. Her father never wanted her to leave in life, why would he leave in death?

He still looks guilty everytime he sees her, and that makes sense too, but she wishes he wouldn’t. Abigail doesn’t blame him, much. At least he’s trying to give her something like the life she might have had before. Him and Dr. Lecter.

There are days when she can’t even stand the sight of Dr. Bloom anymore. It wasn’t Will who took her and put her in that prison of a hospital. It wasn’t Dr. Lecter who assumes he knows what’s best for her, without ever even bothering to ask Abigail what she wanted.

It’s ungrateful, but when it’s Dr. Bloom standing between Abigail and freedom, it’s hard not to hate her, no matter her _intentions_.

Will checks her out of the hospital, tells her to pack up her things. Abigail locks the ember of hope that creates behind her ribs until it becomes a physical weight in her chest.

They drive in silence for a while, Will looking slightly ill but happier than Dr. Bloom describes him. Abigail wonders if he’s happy because of _her_ , and she just… wishes. If things were different.

“Abigail,” Will says suddenly, his voice scratchy like he’s been coughing, but Abigail almost never has anyone willingly talk to her anymore, she laps up the sound of his voice like she’s one of his strays, the ones he’s shown her pictures of, “why didn’t you tell me you were homesick?”

There’s a burr of some accent that sounds French, but also Spanish, and Southern all at once in his voice, and clear upset. Will had lived in New Orleans for his entire life until he left--Dr. Bloom wouldn’t tell her why and Abigail doesn’t want to ask Will, leaving home is traumatic enough--and if everyone sounds like that Abigail wants to go there someday. She wants to go everywhere in the world except for Minnesota.

“I… It’s just… the hospital, you know. I don’t like it there. The food is bland, and I hate the people there. They all stare at me, and I know what they’re thinking.” Abigail wishes she could tell him everything, wishes that Will would understand. Oh, she thinks that he might, with his empathy that could see her father so clearly, but the guilt that he feels over that always seems to overshadow anything else.

“Ha, shrinks. Always trying to pick you apart.” Will sounds bitter, and she supposes that if _she_ is interesting because of her father, what must it be like for Will? Strange, then, that the closest relationships he seems to have are with Drs. Lecter and Bloom. “I won’t make you go back there, if you don’t want to. You can stay with me if you need a place. Hope you’re not allergic to dogs though.” He quirks a half-smile at her, and keeps his eyes on the road.

It feels like a bird’s come alive in her chest, like that hard, heavy diamond of hope behind her ribs grew wings and is trying to beat its way out through her throat. Her eyes burn, and she reaches up to finger at the scar her father’s knife left. “What about Dr. Bloom?” slips out, and Abigail feels like she’s cursed herself.

“Alana isn’t the only psychiatrist in the world. Neither is Hannibal.” He’s shaking just a little, until his hands tighten on the steering wheel, and Abigail is worried that she’ll let herself love him only for him to be taken away too. Will can’t replace her father or her mother, she doesn’t think either of them wants that no matter what she might have said, but sometimes Will feels like a much older brother. Someone still shaped by Garrett Jacob Hobbs, but removed enough that he can take care of her, love her in return.

She wants to say ‘yes’. She wants to say ‘please don’t ever let me go back there’. Instead, she says, “what about the FBI?” and it feels like a confession. Will glances at her, just a moment, just a second of eye contact, and she knows he knows who killed Nick Boyle.

“Jack can hardly say you’re leaving the country with a guilty conscience if you’re staying with a professor who teaches at Quantico and helps out with murder investigations,” he says instead of anything to let on that he knows. But Abigail does, hoards yet another secret to herself and won’t let on that he’s protecting her. She had thought about digging Boyle up, enough for him to be found, but it’s not just about Abigail anymore.

Too late, she realizes it was never just about her. Dr. Lecter is also protecting her, the same way Will is, and she’s never felt more like a living, breathing person rather than a _thing_ since her father found her college acceptance letters.

“Where are we going?” she asks, and Will nods. Abigail will give him an answer later. It’ll be ‘yes’, but she needs to think.

“Hannibal invited us to dinner. I think he has a surprise for you.” His smile is back, crooked but there, and Abigail smiles back, trying to let some of the bitterness go. Things may not ever be the same, but maybe different isn’t all that bad.

* * *

Dr. Lecter is waiting for them outside when they arrive, a basket in hand. Abigail remembers seeing Will fiddle with his phone, clearly letting him know they were close--but for Dr. Lecter to wait outside feels… strange. Abigail doesn’t know what to do with the idea of an outing with the two of them, it feels too normal.

At least in Dr. Lecter’s eclectic, but clean and stylish, home, or in Will’s disheveled but well-lived cottage--both of them so far removed from the house she grew up in--she can pretend it’s something different than what it really is. (She can pretend that there’s not some part of her that would like nothing better than to forget her family and make a new one that won’t hurt her the way that her mother did when she died, the way her father did when he cast her out as bait for her proxies. She can pretend that she’s just… away, and her mother and father are still alive, still so much in love, and her father never did those things. It’s a stupid, selfish thing to want to pretend, but it doesn’t stop that small part of her from pushing itself to the fore whenever she lets her guard down.)

Will seems to already know where they’re going, and Abigail sits in the back watching him and Dr. Lecter lean towards each other and talk while Will is driving, his eyes on the road, but part of his attention so very _focused_ on Dr. Lecter. It’s such a familiar scene--only the people are different and she’ll never see the old players in such a way again--and Abigail has to wonder if Dr. Lecter realizes.

She thinks Will does--as much as he’s able to, what with him being so private, and them knowing each other for such a short time--and that he reciprocates it at least a little. Even if he might prefer to think of Dr. Bloom in that light, it doesn’t stop him from reacting to the promise of… intimacy, she supposes? They just seem to _know_ each other, and Abigail thinks that’s more beautiful than anything else.

Even if Will doesn’t _know_ everything, Abigail has faith that he’ll eventually figure it out. And she doesn’t think it will go the way Dr. Lecter thinks it will. Will is always very surprising, to everyone, and whatever else people might say about her, Freddie Lounds is very perceptive.

Can a mirror reflect what isn’t there? And people aren’t even mirrors. Will has his own thoughts and opinions on things. His empathy catches mostly on serial killers, like her father, for a reason. Everything has to happen for a reason, otherwise what’s the point?

They pull into a small car lot, only one or two spaces, for Govans Urban Forest proclaims the bright sign. Will sighs. “If you wanted to visit a forest, we could have gone to Wolf Trap.” Abigail agrees, but to herself, in her head; she’s not used to being able to see buildings through the trees.

“Nonsense,” Dr. Lecter smiles just a bit, his voice just a bit admonishing. Abigail still flinches like she was the one who said it out loud and not Will. “Urban sustainability projects are very important, Will. Besides, Jack still wants you close today, I have no doubt.”

Will snorts. “Hannibal, Quantico is closer to Wolf Trap. We’re almost two hours away.” He still sits on one of the logs worn from that exact use. Abigail sits next to him and tries not to fold into herself.

“Imagine that, dear Will. I had no idea.” Abigail will eat her own shoe if that’s really the case. The gleam in Dr. Lecter’s eye when Will throws his head back to laugh is startling, but not unexpected.

Dr. Lecter pulls out wrapped sandwiches for each of them and glass bottles of some fancy european soda that Abigail has never heard of, still beaded with condensation. This park isn’t very far, at all, from Dr. Lecter’s house, she realizes, and then she wonders if he comes here often, like Will walks through the woods surrounding his house often.

It’s a soothing place, an oasis in the biggest city she’s ever been in. “Thank you for taking us here, Dr. Lecter,” she says, not sure what prompted it, but the smile he gives her tells her that she did right.

“My pleasure, Abigail. And, please, call me Hannibal.” He gestures to the three of them, a small but encompassing thing that makes her feel warm and safe. “We’re all friends here, I’m sure.”

Will smiles at Hannibal, like this time _he_ was the one to be rewarded for doing the right thing, and that protected feeling layers itself onto Abigail like a blanket. This tiny bit of trees is rapidly becoming her favorite place in Baltimore. “What did you make today, Hannibal?” he asks, unwrapping the sandwich and inspecting it closely.

Abigail does the same thing, and she notices immediately that it’s not quite the same as her father’s. The bread is thicker and not store-bought--or, at least, not the mass-produced bread that she grew up on--and the mustard isn’t yellow, it’s coarse and thick with chunks of the mustard seed ground flat in it.

The scrapple, though, looks exactly like the last time her father made it, fried crisp and glistening with fat, cut thick enough that the middle should still be soft.

She wants to cry.

“Dear Abigail recently told me her favorite food, and I endeavored to make her happy, given she has not been feeling quite herself in the hospital,” Hannibal says, and there’s that smile from Will again. Abigail can’t quite tear her eyes away from the sandwich.

“Uh-huh. A sandwich, soda, and the outdoors. You’re becoming positively rustic, Hannibal,” Will chuckles to himself after that, and Hannibal raises an eyebrow.

Both of them take a bite before Abigail does. Will wrinkles his nose a bit, probably at the texture--no one is ever prepared for the texture the first time, her mother always said, while her father packed them all lunch for the day--and Hannibal savors it slowly.

Abigail wants to scream, wants to throw it away, wants to swallow it whole in one bite.

“Are you okay?”

“Is something the matter, Abigail?”

She doesn’t know what to say to them, and it’s only when Hannibal rubs her cheek with his handkerchief that she realizes she’s crying. Will holds her hand, thumb rubbing gently across the back. It feels like a brand, he’s so feverish, and she jerks back. She’ll make him go to the hospital with her, even if she has to fake being sick herself.

“I-- I,” she tries to think of what’s wrong with her, she’s only been wanting this very thing for weeks, even if it’s not quite the same thing, “I shouldn’t miss him. My father. He _used_ me, he tried to kill me, and I want to be able to… hate… him.” She does want that. But she also wants to be able to _love_ him again, wants to go back to before it all went bad and that’ll never happen.

Never _could_ have happened. Is this what it means to grow up? Does she have to lose everyone she ever loved, to survive on her own, without any help?

It’s too hard. She needs _someone_. Abigail isn’t broken enough to keep herself company with the shards of her pain.

“Even if he did terrible things, he was still your father,” Will says, like he knows, lacking the guilt that normally edges his voice when he talks about her father. “You’re allowed to love the man he was to you and hate what he did at the same time.” Will never talks about his past, she only barely knows about New Orleans, but she feels like he’s speaking from experience. Hannibal dabs at her face again.

“I don’t want to be alone. But I don’t have anything or anyone to go back to. He took _everything_ from me, and some days I don’t even know who I am other than the daughter of Garrett Jacob Hobbs.”

* * *

They take her to Hannibal’s after that, and the drive back has none of the easiness of earlier, none of the sly glances between Will and Hannibal, none of the excitement of having a peaceful day out with two people who she hopes really do care about her. Her eyes burn and ache, her throat feels raw, and she’s so tired.

Will gets a call from Agent Crawford less than five minutes after they walk into Hannibal’s front door. He pats Abigail awkwardly on the back, sends a speaking glare at Hannibal, and walks out before Abigail can even bring up the subject of his fever and going to the hospital.

Hannibal watches him go, and then turns into the kitchen. Abigail is tired, she really just wants to _sleep_ \--to forget this ever happened and that she had a meltdown over her favorite food and didn’t even get to eat any of it--but she follows him anyways.

He has her trained well, but then, so did her father.

“I’m sorry,” Abigail has to say, when she sees Hannibal unpacking the remains of the picnic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-- I’ll still eat it, thank you for making it--” Hannibal shakes his head.

“Nostalgia can produce strange reactions, I shall save this for another day.” Abigail watches him break down the sandwich--salvaging the scrapple patty--with a frown and a churning, twisting stomach. She feels nauseous and like she did something wrong. She _did_ do something wrong, but she doesn’t think Hannibal really cares all that much about the lives of the girls her father killed. “I think tea and something light would go down much better for the moment.”

“You don’t have to,” she says, clutching her stomach. He doesn’t, but it sounds amazing, and Abigail doesn’t want to go to sleep like this. She _will_ , but she already messed up one meal of Hannibal’s and she’s dreading the consequences of that.

“And yet I will,” he replies, placing a steaming teacup in front of her. Abigail only nods, not about to refuse again, and sips at it, blowing on it so she doesn’t burn herself.

“…Thank you” she manages after a moment. Abigail wishes Will was there, wishes she had given him an answer when she had the chance, and wishes that she was anyone besides Abigail Hobbs.

“Have you given any thought to what you will be doing for schooling?”

It’s an innocuous question, one that wouldn’t feel like he stabbed her if she had been anywhere close to a normal person. Abigail can’t help but feel that that is the point. “Dr. Bloom hasn’t released me from the hospital yet. And I don’t think I’ll be getting any scholarships anytime soon.” And without scholarships, Abigail has no hope of ever paying for college herself. Not with the loss of everything: the house, her mother’s savings, her father’s accounts, _everything_.

“Mmm,” Hannibal tosses a small salad in a bowl, and sets it down for her. “Will offered to remove you from the hospital against Alana’s wishes. Will you not be taking him up on his offer, then?”

Abigail obediently eats the salad, picking at the greens. It’s delicious, and it makes her even more angry at herself that she messed up earlier. “I… want him to. I just don’t know if he’ll be able to. And I don’t want to think that I could… take advantage of his generosity like that.” Hannibal’s eyes bore into her, and Abigail doesn’t want to meet them. It feels like she’s caught the eye of a man-eating wolf. “What college would even want the Minnesota Shrike’s daughter?”

When her acceptance letters first arrived, Abigail had been so excited. So had her mother, who had been so proud of her, and that feeling had lasted all the way through the celebratory dinner that her mother had taken the three of them out on. It was only in the days following that her father had… changed. Gotten aggressive, possessive, but he still was proud and happy to take her to her first school tour.

Sandra wasn’t on purpose, Abigail doesn’t know that for sure, but her father killing her hadn’t seemed premeditated. Sandra was just… friendly, and Abigail had liked talking to her, hadn’t even noticed how similar they looked until afterwards, with her father whispering to her that he found a solution, the perfect solution, and that she could pick the ones who would take her place, his little girl, and that he loved her _so much_.

It makes her so sick to think that she didn’t just tell him to kill her, that she picked out seven other girls for her father to kill.

She’s not a good person, she’s a selfish one, but she’s also a living one too, so Abigail can take the pain that Hannibal gives her.

“Will’s really sick,” she says, worried about him, about her future if he can’t help her, staring down at her bowl. Hannibal makes this noise, and it’s very close to the noise that he made when she picked up the phone that terrible day. Oh. “You already know, don’t you?”

“Whatever gives you that impression?” Abigail risks a look, and Hannibal has the same pleased little smirk he had when she guessed he was the man on the phone. She might even say he is proud of her, if he wasn’t so threatening.

“But, you want to know what he’ll do, don’t you… You’re curious.” Abigail’s eyes burn, but she can’t cry again today. Especially not now.

“Very astute, Abigail. Will is exceedingly fascinating.” He looks distant, almost fond, for a moment, the same way he’d looked at Will when Will wasn’t looking. Abigail knows she’s treading very close to the edge of too far, and it would be all too easy for Hannibal to throw her off the cliff, even if he would not enjoy her loss.

There’s nothing left in her salad bowl to eat, and her tea is down to the dregs. Abigail swallows and forges on ahead. “I don’t think… what if Will dies?”

Hannibal tsks, and smiles. “Dear Abigail, so concerned for others.” Abigail feels the score of it settle into her skin, and she swallows again.

“If he dies, he can’t be fascinating anymore. He can’t be anything anymore.” She doesn’t want that, and Abigail doesn’t think Hannibal really wants that either. Strangers may not have been enough for her to stand up to her father, but Will isn’t a stranger and Hannibal isn’t her father. “Things can go wrong all the time. Especially when people are sick. Elise… My father, he was so sad and so angry that she died and he couldn’t… honor her. She would have died soon anyways, but _he_ took the last bit of life from her and couldn’t repay that. Will likes you, but he can’t do even that if he’s dead.”

She’s angry, and she wants to rage and scream, take out her knife and protect the last person who seems to care _anything_ for just her, just _Abigail_. Instead she picks up her dishes and goes to wash them in the sink, fully expecting to have the kind of death she should have had months ago in her family’s kitchen.

“Perhaps you have a point. Will has been… fascinating like this, but soon the risk of death will be greater.” Hannibal doesn’t kill her, not in that moment anyway, and he sounds almost surprised. Abigail tries to make her shoulders relax from around her ears, but doesn’t have much luck. “He’ll be back in the morning, I’m sure, if you’d like to spend the night?”

Abigail tries not to hug herself until she’s alone in the guest room, and even though she was so tired earlier, she tosses and turns the whole night through, unable to sleep at all.

In the morning, Will checks into a hospital on Hannibal’s recommendation, and it is Hannibal, not Will, who calls Dr. Bloom to inform her that Abigail isn’t going back to the hospital. She cries again--but this time she can do it in private, away from predators she can’t afford to look weak in front of--out of relief this time, even though she hates how she feels afterward.

They go see Will in the hospital--Abigail with red, puffy eyes and Hannibal with some complex version of chicken soup--and he is grouchy and unhappy to be in the hospital, but so very happy to see them.

Hannibal leaves the room for a moment, off to consult with Will’s doctors--but not before he brushes a hand over Abigail’s shoulder, and favors Will with a fond look--and Abigail takes Will’s hand. It’s still as hot as it was the day before, but Abigail is expecting that this time and she doesn’t flinch away. Will smiles tiredly at her.

Abigail smiles tiredly back. “Will… if it’s still okay, I just want you to know that I love dogs.”

Will full on grins at her for that, and he says, “well that’s good, because it looks like I need a dog-sitter. Would you mind?”

There’s a lump in her throat that tastes like her past, her anger, and her helplessness. She manages to talk around it anyways. “Yes, of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Will makes blackened whatever-he-last-caught, Hannibal makes [Pavé de boeuf with Roquefort sauce and gratin dauphinois](https://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipes/chefs-recipes/pave-de-boeuf-with-roquefort-sauce-and-gratin-dauphinoise-7927), [scrapple](https://honest-food.net/how-to-make-scrapple-recipe/), and the chicken soup from the show.
> 
> Set between “Oeuf” and “Coquilles” a Season 1 divergence. If anyone has a problem with the way that Hannibal acts in a few scenes remember: this is from Abigail’s pov, single character narration is inherently unreliable, Hannibal is in front of Will and therefore maybe acting for Will’s benefit, and this is my fic and I want good things to happen so they will. Implied cannibalism and murder aside.
> 
> If you'd like, come visit me on [tumblr](https://sachinighte.tumblr.com/)!


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